Saturday, 6 October 2012

"Ten Billion isn’t quite a play but it’s certainly the most scary show in London"Mail on Sunday

The winners of UK Theatre Awards 2012 will be announced on October 28. In the category "Best Horror Performance" Oxford professor Stephen Emmott, head of Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory, should easily be the winner. Emmott's one-man show "Ten Billion", devised by theater director Katie Mitchell, has had a successful two-week run at the Royal Court Theater in London.Liberal and "progressive" audiences were apparently mesmerized by professor Emmott's tale of an "unprecedented planetary emergency" (due to human induced global warming and overpopulation):

“I’m here because I’m concerned,” the computer scientist began his presentation in somber tones to hushed, expectant audiences in London. “I’m concerned about the state of the planet.”

He proceeded to narrate his vision of a world that is a “living hell” in which we are at war over land, food, and water as a world population of 10 billion scrabbles over resources.

Indeed, migration will be motivated not by choice or economic necessity by the end of the century, but by human survival.

“By 2100, the terms ‘climate conflict,’ ‘water wars,’ and ‘resource conflict’ will become highly likely in parts of the world,” Emmott told CNBC. “I envisage a world of severe land, agricultural and water stress as a result of population growth, land degradation, and climate change.”

Emmott believes global average temperatures could rise by as much as 6 degrees Celsius (around 11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, an “utterly catastrophic” possibility.

As people flee to cooler climes, Britain will develop militarized borders to stave off mass immigration. “Climate migrant” could become an everyday term, he said.

Indeed, "we are screwed” when the world population hits 10 billion unless we stop having children and curb our rampant use of energy and water, Emmott said, reeling off everyday facts to exemplify the energy use we take for granted every day.

The production of a single cup of coffee requires 100 liters (26 gallons) of water, while a chocolate bar draws upon 27,000 liters (7,132 gallons). Even a simple computer search for www.CNBC.com consumes the same energy as boiling a kettle.

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“People say we can ‘technologize’ our way out of this, but I am unconvinced of this ... to avoid some catastrophic outcome, we are going to radically change the way we live, and our economies, principally, consuming much, much less."

If professor Emmott's chocolate bar computation is true, Greenpeace, the Friends of the Earth and other envirofundamentalist NGO's should immediately stop their campaigns against fracking (which they are blaming for wasteful use of water) and start a global anti-chocolate movement instead. After all, the water needed for fracking pales in comparison with the production of choco bars!

Of course Dr. Emmott's show also has an official sponsor, the European Commission, an institution that lavishly supports almost any project featuring human caused "climate change" .

The leaders of China's Communist Party are nothing but bunch of corrupted thugs

For years apologists for the Chinese communist government have been spreading the myth that massive corruption in China is only a local problem and that the people at the top are squeaky-clean and unselfish managers of the common good. The Bo Xilai scandal has put an end to that kind of propaganda:

From revelations of massive corruption to the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood by Mr Bo’s wife Gu Kailai, the sordid affair has shown the Chinese people and the world that the rot goes right to the top.

For the last three decades, the party has carefully cultivated the perception that, while there may be corruption and wrongdoing at lower levels, the system is governed by clean and selfless elites who live only to serve the masses.

China’s spectacular rise and its success in lifting hundreds of millions out of abject poverty combined with the intense secrecy surrounding senior officials have convinced many to accept this vision of a just and benevolent emperor calling the shots from Beijing….

When historians look back on the Bo Xilai scandal they will almost certainly identify this as the moment when China’s vicious backroom political battles spilled into the open and the myth of the good emperor was shattered.

Far from revealing authoritarian China’s meritocracy and ability to self-correct, the Bo Xilai saga underscores how its leaders believe they are above the law and how little accountability there actually is.

There is plenty of corruption to go around in China, and it is not confined to local officials. It’s those at the top whose kids drive Ferraris and who own homes in the US and who funnel large quantities of cash out of China. The Bo Xilai scandal simply makes it more obvious. It pulls the curtain on a topic the CCP wants to keep removed from public discourse and exposes the good/bad argument as total hogwash. The government never wanted the story to gain public attention; as the reporter says, “Chinese, British and US officials say privately that without the involvement of foreign governments Heywood’s murder would probably never have been uncovered and Mr Bo would still be a frontrunner for promotion when the party anoints new leaders at a once-a-decade conclave next month.” So don’t go arguing that the fact that we know so much about the scandal is due to transparency on the part of the powers that be. I agree with the article’s conclusion, that there are plenty of officials at the top who are no different than Bo Xilai when it comes to corruption and amassing illegal fortunes.

Friday, 5 October 2012

A new Norwegian study confirms that electric cars - the darlings of all "progressive" greenies - are not very green at all:

Questioning thoughts arise from a bracing study from Norway. The electric car might be a trade-in of an old set of pollution problems for a new set. Thanks but no thanks to a misguided cadre selling on the green revolution. Electric cars will eventually be one more pollutant source to campaign over. The study, "Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles," appears in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology declared in the study that "EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain."-Earlier this year, reports of a study of vehicle types in China concluded that electric cars have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than conventional vehicles. The researchers in that study examined pollution in 34 Chinese cities and they found that the electricity generated by power stations to drive electric vehicles led to more fine particle emissions than petrol-powered transport. They analyzed five vehicle types—gasoline and diesel cars, diesel buses, e-bikes and e-cars.

Russia's propaganda radio, The Voice of Russia, is to be congratulated for publishing an (almost) objective article about the game changing shale gas and oil revolution:

Ten years ago, it was impossible to imagine that the United States would become a major producer of natural gas and overtake Russia for first place in volume of production. Now, it is a fact. Many countries have begun to develop shale gas, including Poland, Ukraine, Australia, the UK and China. According to media reports, by 2032 the United Kingdom will be able to meet a quarter of its needs with this type of fuel.

New technologies have been developed that make it feasible to extract shale oil in many countries. For example, according to available information, Japan is betting on it. Japan Petroleum Exploration Company has managed to extract liquid shale oil, which may solve the country’s acute power shortage, exacerbated by Tokyo’s decision to abandon nuclear energy in the future.

The shale revolution, if it happens, will inevitably have a major impact on international relations. Imagine a purely theoretical scenario: the USA, Western Europe and China stop importing oil and gas, or at least dramatically reduce imports. It is safe to say that the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf would be among the biggest losers in such a scenario. Demand for their products would plummet, and they would have to significantly scale back their geopolitical ambitions.

The United States would become less interested in Central Asia, and pipeline projects bypassing Russia would likely come to a halt. The future of Caspian Sea development would be in question. Perhaps, instead of trying to gain access to foreign energy reserves, Washington would focus its efforts on other areas, such as restoring its position in the Western Hemisphere (i.e. Latin America), which has weakened in recent years.

China, which is also planning to start domestic production of shale gas and oil, would very likely lose interest in Central Asia. Chinese expansion into Africa would also peter out, and Beijing’s dependence on oil supplies from the Persian Gulf would diminish.

At first glance, if shale technology lives up to the hype, Russia would appear to be in the camp of losers. This, however, is not quite true. First, the country has a more diverse economy than, say, Saudi Arabia. It is of course heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues, but a fall in the latter would provide a further powerful stimulus to economic diversification.

The fact is that, due to dictator Putin's and his money machine Gazprom's complete failure in anticipating the shale gas revolution and its strategic importance, Russia is most certainly in the camp of losers. With the amateur "economist" and "energy expert" Putin and his henchmen in charge, Russia will not be able to diversify its economy, which is still heavily dependent on the income from gas and oil exports. (Oil and gas revenues, including mining and quarrying taxes as well as export customs duties on oil and gas, together constitute almost half of the federal government's revenues). Russia will be able to leave the losers' camp only when Putin exits.

Thursday, 4 October 2012

It is becoming more and more apparent that ECB President Mario Draghi's intention to embark on unlimited purchaes of sovereign bonds from crisis stricken euro countries is not only unwise but also illegal. Particularly in Germany the criticism of "Super Mario's" model is growing:

The duel between Draghi and Weidmann is not new, but it has become more pointed of late. And its importance would be difficult to overstate: It has to do with the future course of the ECB and, with it, one of the world's most important currencies. Does the ECB's bond-buying program fall into the category of monetary policy consistent with the bank's mandate of maintaining price stability? Or does it step over the line into fiscal policy by intervening in countries' efforts to obtain capital, which it is expressly forbidden from doing?

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"The ECB's argument that the bond purchases have to do with monetary policy is a pretext," says Jürgen Stark, the central bank's chief economist until the end of last year. "If the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is indeed disturbed, the ECB must intervene, irrespective of whether or not a country has subjected itself to a bailout program."

For Stark, who resigned in protest over the ECB's first bond-purchasing program, a red line has been crossed once again. "We are talking about the financing of governments here," he says. That, he points out, is in violation of European Union treaties. "The ECB is operating outside its mandate," he concludes

Academics share his assessment. "Common sense tells us that the ECB, with its purchasing program, is doing something completely different from expressing its concern over price stability," says Clemens Fuest, a professor of economics at the University of Oxford. According to Fuest, the ECB, following the example of the International Monetary Fund, is upgrading itself to a European bailout institution, which provides assistance based on certain conditions. It loses its independence as a result, says Fuest, because it can hardly refuse to provide assistance if its conditions are met. "The ECB has overstretched its mandate," Fuest believes.Read the entire article here

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Did human induced global warming slow down Tom Longboat, the winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon?(image by wiki)

Here is a hint for the guys choosing next year's Nobel Peace Prize, or alternatively one of the science prizes. A Boston University team has just published some sensational results, based on their groundbreaking new research:

Led by BU biologist Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, the scientists analyzed weather data alongside men's winning times in the Boston Marathon from 1933 to 2004 and women's winning times from 1972 (when women first officially participated) to 2004. They found that a 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) increase in temperature slowed the winning time, on average, by 20 seconds for men and 21 seconds for women. Strong headwinds had a similar effect. But overall, the researchers found that warming trends did not seem to affect the winning times of the marathon between 1933 and 2004, likely because there is still large variation in marathon-day temperature over that period.

"The authors are not saying that a warm temperature on race day on any given year won't affect race performance," said Scott Montain, a physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine who was not involved in the study. But the BU data suggests it will take "considerable time" before year-over-year warming will result in predictable and consistent slowing of race times, Montain explained to LiveScience in an email.

The BU researchers said if the race-day temperatures warmed by an average of 0.050 degrees F (0.028 degrees C) per year, they would expect a 64-percent chance that winning times would consistently slow by 2100. But even if Boston saw predictably rising temperatures on the third Monday of every April going forward, marathon runners will likely avoid any long-term climate-caused drag because race organizers have moved up the start time, researchers said. Through 2005, the race kicked off at noon, but since then, it has started in waves beginning at 9:00 a.m.

"By changing starting times for the race to earlier in the day when temperatures are cooler ... race organizers have effectively counteracted any effects that long-term warming would have had on winning times," the authors wrote. "If this change had not been made, we would have expected that warming would likely lead to fewer record-breaking times in the Boston Marathon."

Record unemployment, recession, austerity measures, budget cuts and violent mass demonstrations - those are the grim realities European Union member countries have to face right now. And what's worse, Europe's problems are dragging down the entire world economy. Desperate EU leaders have been begging China's communist rulers - who have been able to amass the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world - to rescue the crisis ridden euro. So far, the Chinese have only offered friendly words.

But the Brussels bureaucrats, who live in a cosy, recession free parallel world of their own, are clearly not bothered by the sad state of affairs in their "empire". While Merkel and the rest are begging China to "bail out" the euro, the European Commission is handing out free "climate change" aid to the same People' s Republic! The Chinese must be laughing.

The European Commission is giving millions in aid to China to help the world's second biggest economy combat climate change, a move critics questioned at a time when most European Union member states are imposing budget cuts.The European Commission, which manages policies and funds for the European Union as a whole, has signed a "financing agreement" with China to promote "lowcarbon urbanization and environmental sustainability." Under this arrangement, EU taxpayers will give China $32 million Cdn over the next four years.

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Andris Piebalgs, the European Commissioner for Development, said the aim was to help China's cities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through a variety of schemes, notably a carbon trading mechanism.

"If we can build strong partnerships, we can improve the life of billions of Chinese and Europeans by getting the most and the best from all our efforts to stimulate sustainable urban development," he said.

The huge growth in Chinese exports has allowed Beijing to amass the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world.

Its coffers now hold $3.2 trillion - a sum 33 per cent larger than the entire British economy.

Given that China commands such immense financial resources of its own, critics questioned whether the country should receive aid from the EU.

Martin Callanan, the leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, described the decision as "very odd, particularly at a time when we're trying to cut the EU budget."

He added that it was "typical" of the commission. "Climate change is a trendy subject so they'd give money to anything to do with it," he said. "Why on earth are we giving money to the country with the biggest foreign exchange reserves in the world?

It's clearly a nonsense and it should be a prime candidate for the savings the commission are supposed to be making."

Member states have demanded that the EU freeze its budget for this year.

Catherine Ray, a spokesman for the development commissioner, said that helping China to fight climate change was "definitely in the interest of EU - and UK - citizens as much as China's."

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

I could not believe my eyes when I first read it in the Guardian/Observer, the European flagship of global warming alarmism: An article about climate change in which catastrophic human caused global warming is not mentioned at all! But there it was, written by a renowned university professor: Radical temperature fluctuations are a fact of life on Earth, and we're lucky to be enjoying a brief, balmy interglacial. But look out when it stops…-

So here we are, in an interglacial. It's sobering to remember that this is just a brief interlude. Some time fairly soon, we'll probably begin the descent into a long glacial winter again. When that happens, all the temperate-adapted animals that currently range widely across the northern hemisphere will clear out of the far north. Ice sheets will grow down over North America and northern Europe again. Our civilisations have grown up in this unseasonably stable (and already overlong) warm interglacial. We've grown a huge global population in this favourable climate. It will be even more difficult to support such a massive number of people when the world becomes colder and drier again.

But for those cold-adapted animals that are currently hanging out in Arctic refugia, things will look up. If polar bears manage to cling on, there'll be much more room for them in the next glaciation.

Monday, 1 October 2012

First stop exploring for unconventional fossil fuels in Canada’s tar sands or underneath the Arctic. When in a hole, stop digging. Second, copy Germany."

Sauven most certainly must know what it means to copy Germany:

A funny thing is happening on the way to the clean energy future. While the US government wages a regulatory war on coal fired generation, in Europe, the land of the oh so politically correct the drive for greenhouse gas emissions reduction is meeting a new competitor—-reality!

The EU emissions trading scheme had fallen on hard times as the number of permits issued was large and demand in a falling economy was weak so prices fell. Some reforms were made and the freebie credits were reined in but the economy was still weak. While progress was still made in emissions reduction it was not the transformation some had hoped to achieve.

Then the Japan earthquake and tsunami sends Europe into a frenzy over the safety of nuclear power and Germany announced major closures of its nuclear fleet. The Greens hoped killing off nuclear would give them a two-fer—less nuke and more renewables.

The German government policy is to encourage construction of 10 gigawatts of coal fired generation to displace aging nuclear plants and provide baseload backup for wind and solar power. Worldwide coal plant construction grew 5.4% over the past year according to BP and now represents about 30% of installed capacity. The trade-off is to reduce the number of free emissions allowances to drive up the carbon credits markets. To the Greens this is like paying penance for your sins.

But markets are a fickle mistress. The lust for profits is a basic human business animal spirit. So a story recently in Bloomberg BusinessWeek caught my eye. It said that European power producers planned to open six times more coal fired generating plants than gas-fired generators by 2015. The story said profits at coal plants were expected to double repeating an analysis released September 13 by Goldman Sachs.

Greenpeace's support for the German model, is a clear endorsement for increasing the role of coal in global and European energy production. Will we soon see Greenpeace campaigning for a renaissance of the British coal industry?

Sunday, 30 September 2012

The Queensland government in Australia shows how to deal with Greenpeace:

"The Queensland government places no weight on any report that Greenpeace prepares.

''They are scaremongers of the first order and never let the facts get in the way of their predetermined views," Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Jeff Seeney said.

He said the development of the Galilee Basin was vital to Queensland´s economic future, and it would be done in a balanced way.

He noted the government had already scaled back the Abbot Point coal port, and limited rail corridors from the basin to coal ports to two, and not six as Labor had proposed.

"Queenslanders can be assured that while providing for development we will require mining companies to pursue world´s best practice and ensure that the environment is protected," he said.

Also the Queensland Resources Council knows how to handle Greenpeace reports:

The Queensland Resources Council also dismissed the report, calling it a "comic book".

QRC chief executive Michael Roche said the coal industry had only managed to grow exports by 71 million tonnes over the past 13 years.

"Greenpeace would have people believe that coal exports will grow by a further 891 million tonnes over the next decade," he said in a statement.

"Greenpeace has the industry growing more than six-fold."

Mr Roche said more credible forecasts came from the federal government¡¯s Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, which reported the outlook for 2020 at 327 million tonnes.

"Who is the public to believe, the independent experts at BREE or the people from the scary monsters unit at Greenpeace, an organisation committed to shutting down the Australian coal industry," he asked.

Dr Nikki Williams, chief executive of the Australian Coal Association said: "Greenpeace is plunging its head in the sandpit, ignoring the reality of global energy demand.

"Their latest missive is an instalment in their agenda to cripple the coal export industry, exposed by Australian media in March this year."

ABC New´s veteran climate change reporter, warmist Bill Blakemore:"I’m not an advocate to try to stop global warming"!Judge yourself. Are these the views of a "fair and accurate" journalist?:"It’s warming. It’s caused by a human activity, human emissions. It’s coming far faster than was expected even five years ago. It’s very dangerous. It’s causing enormous changes to agricultural prices, [and] to seasonal rhythms. And the fifth part of the basics which, as the science keeps showing, that if humanity were to somehow figure out how to drastically reduce greenhouse emissions on a global scale—if humanity were to do that, then it could prevent this rise in temperature, which is…going to continue for at least twenty or thirty years, from then shooting up even further after 2050."How do you approach this issue, given its politicization? As a journalist, fair and accurate.

"Yes, yes. I discovered the gravity of the global warming story—as described by the world’s climate scientists—about 8 years ago, about 2004, 2005. And I quickly came to understand it as an event story, not a politics story. That is to say: It’s not a politics story; it’s not about politics. It’s a political issue, of course, but the core of the story is an event that is happening, according to all of the world’s climate scientists. Like when Mt. St. Helen’s suddenly blew up, we didn’t feel compelled to give the other side equal time or something like that that you hear in political reporting. So, by and large, there’s been—I consider it an event story that you just keep covering, and ignore the false politicization of it.

Now this gets complex because there’s been a lot of solid, investigative, and academic journalism and research that shows that there is a vigorous disinformation and intimidation campaign trying to confuse people, especially in America, about how solid the science is. You talk to any credible, established, professional climate scientists, and they will tell you that the basics of global warming are as solid as science ever gets.And that’s the way I cover it. And if I should find it different, I’d be immediately ready to change it. But I just keep covering it as an event.

I know that there’s all kinds of confusions about the story, partly because it’s so big. It’s unprecedented in its scale. It’s not the elephant in the room, it’s the elephant we’re all inside of. For example, conversations that I and a lot of my colleagues around the country have with our editors is—those of us in the field—are telling our editors, “Look, this isn’t, please don’t think of this as a weather story primarily, or an environment story primarily. It’s not. It’s primarily a security story and a finance story.” So there’s all kinds of new categories that the whole profession of journalism is having to come to understand."

What do you think is most missing from this dialogue about climate change?

"I’ve heard lately a number of colleagues and other academics say that, in America, what’s been missing is discussion of what the realities would be if we—what the economic realities would be—if the government and the society in general did try to tackle it and sort of plan it out. Now, in fact, there have been a number of studies done. Lord Nicholas Stern in Britain did a study about, ‘if the world did this, what percentage of GDP would have to be lost every year?’Another thing that I personally feel is greatly missing in the United States from the discussion about what to do about global warming is a healthy, strong Republican and conservative voice in this. It seems—and I have no party identity myself; I make a point of not have any; I’m not an advocate to try to stop global warming, I’m just trying to report it—but my impression is that as long as one of the major political parties has a large faction trying to pretend that, or claim that, the problem isn’t significant or isn’t there, their voice is sorely missing from the real discussion that I would suspect we need in this country about what to do about it." Read the entire article here